Hello,

I am currently working at Philips in Eindhoven, The Netherlands for my
graduation.
Here we make amongst other thing USB webcams. For these there is an
excelent linux driver, but the author had to sign an NDA in order to get
the specifications of the communication protocol. I have been trying to
convince people here to drop at least part of the NDA so that an open
source driver will be possible. So far the answer has been no.

It turns out that open source osses are considerd to have to litle users
to be a valid market. I was however promissed that if I could show that
is was much bigger then they thought they would reconsider.
I therefor urge everyone to write an email to my email address at
philips: jeroen.vreeken@philips.com
You do not have to buy a camera, just state that IF you were buying one
you would buy one with opensource drivers available.
Please write polite mails and mention 'open source' or your opensource
os in the subject.
I will need at least a few thousand emails.

Jeroen Vreeken
jeroen.vreeken@philips.com

p.s. I am writing this from home so DO NOT answer to my private address,
use jeroen.vreeken@philips.com